CHAPTER ONE: April 15, 2113

I haven’t seen the old man in a hundred years, but when the doorbell chimes and the screen lights up, there he is. He can’t be much older than the last time we met—a few years, at the most—but seeing him here, instead of in that darkened bunker that blinked and hummed with that crazy machine of his, was a bit akin to seeing a circus elephant wandering around the airtrain station. When I open the door, he’s studying my 22nd century apartment building with its seamless façade and rotating solar panels that look nothing like the ones of his day.

“Agent Chandler!” he greets me.

“Been a long time since someone called me that.”

He offers a handshake and I take it unthinkingly, quickly falling into old habits in this strange out-of-time moment.

“Of course,” he says. “So good to see you again. Do you mind if I step inside? We have some important matters to discuss, and your front stoop perhaps isn’t the best place to do so.”

“Sure.” What choice do I have? He’s sure to draw curious looks with those horn-rimmed spectacles, flat cap, tweed jacket, and corduroy pants. You’d think Dr. Wells, of all people, would be more careful about what he wears while time-traveling. Then again, his business is in the vast reaches of the past, not the shiny, synthetic future where I currently live. No, I think, not the future. How long before I stop thinking of it like that?

“Make yourself at home.” I gesture vaguely toward my living room, seeing it now as Dr. Wells would: the memory foam futon made of 100% recycled, hypoallergenic materials, the empty biodegradable food containers from the past week’s worth of Punch-In meals, a scattering of personal visual devices (which to him probably look like regular silver sunglasses) lying in various states of disrepair. I swipe up some of Dodge’s half-completed study cubes off the coffee table to clear a space for my guest. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Dr. Wells shakes his head, settling himself onto the futon and looking so out of place I can’t help but grin. I’d probably laugh out loud were it not for the feeling like quicksand settling in my stomach. The last time I’d seen him, he’d slipped me a warning that my employer was plotting to kill me. The fact that he’s here, paying a visit to me now, means something is very wrong.

I settle into an armchair I’ve always thought was uncomfortable but can’t get rid of; my adopted son Dodge loves it and I wouldn’t dream of denying him something as simple as a favorite chair after all he’s been through. “What’s up, Doc?”

Dr. Wells looks up, startled, and gives me a sad-looking grin. “Did she tell you she used to say that? It was our little joke.”

“Who, Elise?” When I’d known her, she’d been so serious, so focused on returning me to the 21st century that I find it hard to picture her laughing and joking around with her boss like that. “Afraid that’s a side of her I didn’t get to see. How is she?”

“She’s safe. It’s probably better you don’t know more than that. You know how it is in this business.”

I nod. That’s all I need to know. It’s been a year now since she helped Dodge and me escape from an experimental colony in space before it was destroyed by an asteroid. My former employers had hired her—a professional time traveler who worked at Dr. Wells’s clandestine time travel agency—to track me down and kick me back to the 21st century where I belonged. I’ll be forever grateful to her for letting me slip away and telling my employers that I’d been lost with the colony.

“Actually,” Dr. Wells says, fiddling with the watch on his wrist, “the issue I’ve come to discuss with you today involves her.”

My heart skips a beat. “You said she’s okay, though, right?”

“Oh, yes,” Dr. Wells nods, his head bobbing comically. “That is… She’s not in any immediate harm’s way. Not directly. Though indirectly…”

“Tell me.” My fingers tighten around the arms of the chair, and I force them off and wipe my sweaty palms on my silvery suit. If anything were to happen to Elise… Not that she can’t take care of herself, but still… “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing yet,” the wide-eyed scientist says, taking off his glasses and polishing them on the hem of his shirt. “Though with time travel, you understand how muddled these things become.”

“Fine, then what will happen? Just tell me what the problem is, and I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

Dr. Wells nods grimly. “I knew I could count on you.”

What have I just agreed to?

Never mind that. After all Elise has done to help me, I’d do anything to help her. Although… My eyes wander to some bricks Dodge left on the table. There’s plenty of PVD games that mimic interlocking tactile construction, and the vintage toys cost me an arm and a leg at an antique shop, but every eight-year-old boy needs his own LEGOs.

“How long will this take?” I ask.

“Goodness, I have no idea. Days… weeks… months, perhaps.”

“Months?” My eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“Oh, yes. Elise told me about your ward. Don’t you worry. I’ll have you back here before he gets home from school.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“Time travel,” Dr. Wells says with a wink. He digs in his jacket pocket. “I’ve improved the methods a bit since your last travels; the annual interval is still the most energy-efficient way to travel, but if you don’t mind a few side effects—nausea, vertigo, and the like—I can get you back within twenty-four hours of when you left. Now, we’ll just pop on back to my office and I’ll fill you in on the details while you select your wardrobe. Not knowing how long you’ll be gone, we’d best ensure a good fit.”

“Your office?” I ask. “In New York, you mean?”

In the past. My true present.

Dr. Wells pulls out a set of palm-sized spheres so glossy and black they remind me of the endless, empty sky. The last time I saw one of those was with Elise, back on the space colony, minutes before it burst into a billion tiny shards of light. I draw in my breath.

Dr. Wells places the orb in my hand and closes my fingers around it. It feels cold and hard and impossibly smooth. A tremor of apprehension works its way down my spine.

“Sure about this, old man?” I smile, one of my common defense mechanisms. “It has to be me?”

“I’m afraid so. There are very few people who know that Elise escaped the Continuum disaster, and—for her sake—it’s best if we keep it that way. Just press the button when you’re ready.”

Dodge’s boots sit beside the door, their soles cracked and fasteners fraying. He needs a new pair soon; the kid is going through another growth spurt.

“And you swear I’ll come right back here, when it’s all said and done?” My voice catches, and I clear my throat, trying to recapture my usual steady demeanor. “Right back to this time, this place?”

Dr. Wells meets my eye. “I swear.”

I know about his Rules, the foremost being that all travelers must return to their own era of origin. We both know I’m not really from the 22nd century, that I was born in 1985 and ought to be living back in the age of iPhones and Segways, rather than this shining era of clean energy, holographic interfaces, and instant food delivery a hundred years in the future.

“I know it goes against your first Rule.”

“It does, but I think you’ll find that what I’m going to ask you to do breaks a number of my Rules. There are times when we must do what we have to, following the spirit of the law, if not the letter.” He gives me a look I find oddly unreadable. “Remember that.”

“Can I leave him a note? Just in case—” I break off at the sight of Dr. Wells’s frown. “I’ll tell him something came up for work. I do computer programming—freelance, so sometimes I have to travel to visit clients. This may be dangerous, right?”

Dr. Wells hesitates. “It may be.”

“Then I need him to know, if something happens, that I meant to come back. That I didn’t desert him.”

Reluctantly, the old man nods. “No details, though.”

“No details,” I agree, passing him the device and scrambling to find one of Dodge’s note tablets before Dr. Wells changes his mind. With a shaking hand, I try to find the words and eventually settle on some: “Hey, Dodge. Something big came up. Not sure how long I’ll be. If you need anything, go to the Richardsons’ down the hall; they’ve been such good neighbors, I’m sure they won’t mind helping you out.”

I hesitate before signing my name to it. Recently, Dodge has taken to calling me “dad,” a name I’m not sure I deserve.

“Ready?” Dr. Wells asks.

I sign the note with a “love, Dad” and set it aside, my heart racing, before I can second-guess myself. If all goes well, I’ll be back here before he sees it anyway.

Dr. Wells offers me the device again, and my thumb finds its way to the button that’ll send me whipping back through time to the 21st century. I don’t want to go. Yet I trust him; after all, he was the one who’d warned me about my old employers’ true intentions. And for the sake of the woman who saved my life…

I press the button and the world bursts into light.